New Windows Home Server Product Announced

Domain Join

This announcement came as a complete shock to me, but it would seem to be a great move by MS, pulling in the great "home" aspects of Windows Home Server, but building in some of the more enterprise-oriented features of Aurora (Windows Small Business Server 2011), like being able to join an Active Directory domain.  This could turn out to be the "power user’s" WHS version, if they keep the feature set right by not taking away the media features or drive extender.  Now, if they would just add some RAID support… 

 

Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials is positioned squarely
between Aurora and Vail and will include the following feature set:

  • Server and PC backup, including file, folder and image based restore
  • Centralized storage for file data and easier sharing
  • Console driven administration for easier management
  • Access to your data from virtually anywhere through Remote Web Access
  • Network health monitoring for both Windows and Mac PC’s
  • Active Directory Domain join
  • Support for up to 25 users